1. Cut out a section of clay that you want to work with in order to create your dish baring in mind how thick you want your dish to be.
2. Work your clay. It will be very stiff but if you dampen it with some water it will become more malleable. Once it’s a bit softer role it out flat, trying to make a circular shape, roughly the size of a scotch pancake.
3. Place your clay on an upturned cupcake tin in order for the dish to take shape.
4. You have two options at this point. You can either have a perfect circular dish or you can have a wavy edged dish which is more splayed out.
4a. If you want the former, when you put the clay onto the tin you’re going to need to cut out a triangle shaped gap in the side of the dish. You can close the gap by working the clay and wetting it with water, it acts like a glue.
4b. If you want the latter you just need to tease the edges into the wave pattern.
5. Leave it to dry for as long as it says on the packet you got the clay from. Keep an eye on it though and if you see any cracks just dab it with some water and rework it.
6. When you think it’s dry, slowly and carefully extract your dish from the tray and then it’s yours to paint. As you can see I choose to paint Simba from “The Lion King” silhouetted against a sunset. My second dish is inspired by “The Emperor’s New Groove”. The potion is the potion that turned Kuzco into a lama.
Let me know in the comments below if you decide to make a Disney dish and let me know what design you go for.
Young
Simba was voiced by Jonathan Taylor Thomas and adult Simba was voiced by
Matthew Broderick. One of the reasons why Matthew decided to take on the role
of Simba was because he thought that this film was the Disney version of the
film “Kimba the White Lion”, but it wasn’t meant to be, even though
there are repeated allegations that Disney plagiarised The Lion King. Disney
have adamantly said that all similarities between the two are coincidental.
Young
Nala was voiced by Niketa Calame-Harris and adult Nala was voiced by Moira
Kelly.
Mufasa was
voiced by James Earl Jones who may be more well known as the voice of Darth
Vader.
Zazu was
voiced by Rowan Atkinson, more well known for playing Mr. Bean.
Scar was
voiced by Jeremy Irons. He gave such an impressive voice performance when
recording the lines for Scar that they took some of his mannerisms and included
them into Scar.
If
you’re ever watching The Lion King, notice how Scar always keeps his claws out,
like he’s ready to attack at a moment’s
notice. Also notice that Scar has green eyes. That was the colour Disney was
assigning to villains. Think back to many of the other Disney villains and
you’ll realise that green smoke or green effects were used in scenes when there
villainy was heightened.
Ed, one
of the hyenas, was voiced by Jim Cummings. Jim is more well known for playing
Winnie the Pooh and Baloo from The Jungle Book.
Shenzi,
another hyena, was voiced by Whoopi Goldberg.
Banzai,
the third important hyena, was voiced by Cheech Marin.
Rafiki was
voiced by Robert Guillaume. Robert was the only actor to give his character an
African accent, even though like his co-stars, he is American.
Timon
was voiced by Nathan Lane.
In the
scene when they’re coming up with a plan on how to distract the hyena’s Timon
says “What do you want me to do, dress in drag and do the hula?” This
line was improvised by Nathan.
Pumba was voiced by Ernie Sabella who is reportedly the first Disney character to ever pass wind during a Disney film. This sound was made my Pumba blowing a raspberry on his hand.
Nathan and Ernie auditioned together for the hyenas but because they were so funny they were chosen instead for Timon and Pumba, now one of the most iconic duos of all time.
Sarafina,
Nala’s Mother, was voiced by Zoe Leader.
Sarabi,
Simba’s mum, was voiced by Madge Sinclair. This would end up being Madge’s
final film as she sadly lost a 13 year battle with leukaemia.
One
thing that the voice actors didn’t do was record the lion roars, this was all
down to Frank Welker. Frank is an incredibly talented animal voice actor, he
has previously voiced Abu and Rajah in Aladdin, Lucifer in Cinderella, Philippe
in Beauty and the Beast and many more. Frank was able to give each lion a
specific roar to each character which made them a more rounded character.
To
achieve the roars Frank roared into a metal bucket for the sound to bounce of
the sides and seem louder and more powerful.
Development
The idea of The Lion King came from a conversation between Jeffrey Katzenberg, Roy Disney and Peter Schneider as they were on a plane to promote Oliver and Company. There initial thought was that they wanted to set a story in Africa. This automatically drew them to making an animal film and what better animal to focus on than a lion. They also knew they wanted a coming of age film. The film was originally going to be called “King of the Jungle”, until they realised that Lions don’t live in the jungle. George Scribner signed onto be one of the directors at the beginning of the film, this was when the film was described as being an animated National Geographic, but then it was decided for the film to be a musical and that was when he left the project. The Lion King was only ever given B team animators because A team animator were working on Pocahontas. They viewed Pocahontas as a more significant and important film because of its historical values. Turned out The Lion King was the going to be the more successful of the two.
Did you
know that Scar and Mufasa weren’t originally going to be brothers. Originally
Scar was going to be the leader of a pack of baboons but the baboons were
turned into Hyenas after they realised Hyenas were the natural foes of Lions. There
were several alternative story lines they considered and within these stories
there were several other characters created, for example Nala was going to have
a little brother called Mheetu and a father in the film who would be in charge
of another pride. Joka was going to be a rock Python, in support of Scar and there
would be another meerkat, Timon’s relative Tesma.
In order
to prepare for this film the animators took a trip to Africa to research the
landscape and the wildlife. They did also bring Lions and cubs into the studio
to study but the research trip paid off because in the background on several
shots you get important landmarks like Kilimanjaro Mountain and the setting of
the film was based on Hell’s Gate National Park in Kenya. It wasn’t just
scenery they researched it was also language and one of the languages they
speak in Africa is Swahili. Several words in Swahili were borrowed for the names
of some of the characters. For example Simba means Lion, Nala means gift Sarabi
means mirage, Rafiki means friend and Pumba means foolish.
The
hardest scene in the film to animate was the wildebeest stampede, in fact it
took 3 years to finish. The team at Disney ended up making a brand new CGI
programme that would allow hundreds of animals to run in the same direction but
not collide with one another or run through each other. They animated one stampeding
wildebeest and basically hit copy and paste to make hundreds more. Then when
animating the scene they made them all crazy colours so they could identify
them all individually. It took a long time to get right but it was a crucial
scene.
When
Nala returned to the pride, she was going to be banned by Scar, especially as
they were going to have a subplot of Nala rebuffing Scar’s advances, but they
scrapped this idea as they didn’t want to involve sexual harassment into the
film.
A lot of
people have noticed the links between The Lion King and Hamlet but this film’s
story is also very similar to Egyptian mythology. Here’s the basic story and
you can decide if it sounds familiar. Set and Usir are brothers, Set is jealous
of Usir being King so he kills him by trapping him in a box and sending him
down the Nile. Set is the uncle of Horus, Horus makes it his mission in life to
avenge his Dad by becoming King. Horus tricks Set’s army to murder one another
and then set his sights for Set who he forced away into hiding for the rest of
his life.
Music
Jim
Cummings, the voice of Ed, had to fill in for Jeremy Irons when he couldn’t
finish singing his villain song “Be Prepared”. The line “You
won’t get a sniff without me” was too much for Jeremy to handle. During
the song Scar is stood up high on a podium while the Hyenas are marching in synchronicity
down bellow, this is meant to echo Hitler and his Nazi’s. Quite chilling
symmetry if you ask me.
One song
that was removed from the film was song sung by Mufasa and it was to be called
“To Be King” but it didn’t suit James Earl Jones’s voice so it was
removed. Another song that was tweaked was Hakuna Matata. Initially recorded by
Jimmy Cliff and Lebo-M, the song had a reggae sound to it, you can hear this
version on You Tube. To give Timon and Pumba a song to sing “Warthog
Rhapsody” was created but obviously not included in the film as they ended
up being the ones to sing “Hakuna Matata” but you can hear “Warthog
Rhapsody” on You Tube as well.
Hans
Zimmer made the score for the film. He took the job very seriously, spending 2
years finding the right sounds to put together. He also involved a lot of music
from Africa to give it a more cultural feel. Hans involved Lebo-M in the
process and we have a lot to thank Lebo-M for as he’s the talent behind the
opening of Circle of Life. The song changed the whole opening of the film,
originally the film was going to open with a narrative introducing us to all
the characters, this was scrapped when it was revealed how amazing Circle of
Life was.
Elton
John, a very successful and well known musician was asked to do the songs and
lyrics for the film with Tim Rice, another successful musician.
Shortly
before the film was released in theatres Elton went to go and watch the film
and he commented how the love song, “Can You Feel the Love Tonight”,
has been excluded from the film. Elton thought that this wasn’t right and
persuaded Jeffrey Katzenberg, the then chairman of Disney animation to include
it in the film. This ended up being the right decision as the song won an
Academy Award for Best Original Song. This is especially impressive when you consider
the fact that comic duo Timon and Pumba opened the song.
Awards
Although
not an award, The Lion King can hold the title as the best-selling him video of
all time, selling 55million copies worldwide. The Broadway version of The Lion King became the
highest grossing box office title in 2014, surpassing Les Mis, Phantom of the
Opera, Wicked and so many more. The Lion King on Broadway has also earned an
impressive 6 Tony awards, including an award for Best Musical.
The Lion
King was also the highest grossing animated movie of all time, but was beaten
by Toy Story 3 and Frozen.
One
award The Lion King did receive was a Golden Globe for best motion picture.
Easter Eggs
At the
end of the film, after Simba is victorious and he is walking to greet his
fellow lions, he moves past Zazu who can be seen saying “Your majesty”
but it has been muted as the filmmakers believed this distracted from Simba’s
moment.
Another
time Zazu is muted is by Scar when he is trapped in the cage and this is
because he is singing “It’s a Small World” which is the song from the
ride “It’s a Small World” at several Disney parks across the globe.
Jock
from Lady and the Tramp shows up, silhouetted and surrounded by the hyenas when
Simba returns and tries to overthrow Scar.
One
Easter egg they removed from the films could be seen when Simba lies down exhaustedly
on a rock and lots of dust flies out from underneath him. Disney has said that
the dust spells out “SFX” which is a nod to the special effects
department, other people think it spells out a rude word.
Come
back on Monday 22nd July for a blog reviewing the live action The Lion King.
Coming out next year, on July 19th, in the UK and the US is the photo realistic, CGI Disney film, The Lion King. The first sneak peak trailer was recently released for this film and I have few things I’d like to say about it!
The sun rises over the African plains, the gazelles look up, elephants walk across an expansive land with a gigantic ice topped mountain in the background and birds fly across a large body of water. These are the opening scenes we see in the trailer and they look as though they have been extracted from the original films trailer, just with photo realistic CGI rather than cartoon drawings.
Then we hear Mufasa, voiced by James Earl Jones, the voice of the original Mufasa brought back because he was so iconic, voicing the line “Everything the light touches, is our kingdom”. This is a line spoken in the original film, so if you didn’t pick up on the fact that the trailer so far, which is only about 21 seconds in by this point, has been copied from the original trailer, hopefully you will from this line.
Then we’ve got some shots of the animals all lined up, making lots of noise and seeming excited, expectant even, like they’re waiting for the arrival of Simba.
The next shot we get is of Simba, or more accurately, his front right paw as it steps into the much larger footprint of Mufasa’s, foreshadowing how Simba must live up to his father, the King. As we see this very symbolic moment, which has been copied from the original film, we again hear Mufasa speak, this time saying “But a King’s time as ruler rises and falls like the sun”. This also foreshadows how Mufasa’s time will soon be coming to an end. Mufasa continues to speak, saying “One day, the sun will set on my time here, and will rise with you as the new King.” While we hear this, the most important line of dialogue in the trailer, we see a clip of the scene that will bring ruin to the king, and will evoke very sad memories in all the people who ever saw the original film and loved it. The herd of Buffalo, stampeding.
When all hope is lost, what does Disney do? It plays the iconic, possibly the most iconic piece of film music, The Circle of Life and reveals the first glimpse of Pride Rock, followed very quickly by Rafiki and young, possibly hours old Simba who turns his head towards the light. Rafiki then breaks apart the roots to release the red powdery substance that he pushes across Simba’s forehead, before lifting him up high into the sky to be seen by all the cheering animals waiting below.
Next the title card of “THE LION KING” followed by the names of the actors who will be lending their voices to the film. Donald Glover will voice Simba, Seth Rogan will voice Pumbaa, Chiwetel Ejiofor will voice Scar, Billy Eichner will voice Timon, John Oliver will voice Zazu, Keegan-Michael Key will voice Kamari, Beyonce Knowles-Carter will voice Nala and James Earl Jones will voice Mufasa.
Names of those not mentioned in the trailer are John Kani who will voice Rafiki, Alfre Woodard who will voice Sarabi, JD McCrary who will voice young Simba. Shahadi Wright Joseph will voice Young Nala, Florence Kasumba who will voice Shenzi and Eric Andre who will voice Azizi.
The final scene in the trailer is of a dark and cloudy sky, a lion, I’m guessing Simba, roaring powerfully at the sky and Mufasa saying “Remember”.
The trailer was epic, it did what it was meant to do, and that is to intrigue the audience who don’t already know the story of The Lion King. For those who do know the story, it means watching the trailer you have the feelings of nostalgia and you can breathe a sigh of relief that they haven’t tainted your beloved film by getting rid of your favourite characters or bringing in new ones.
The film will be directed by Jon Favreau, the same person who directed the photo realistic CGI/live action The Jungle Book, along with Iron Man and many other films.
The score for the film is by Hans Zimmer with songs by Tim Rice and Elton John. All three worked on the music of the original film so we know we’re in good hands.
Overall, I am excited to go and see this film but I hope that in some way they made it different from the original. The original is a good film, that has been proved and I don’t want a CGI photo realistic copy. I want something newer, refreshing and relevant to today. Asking for something specific, I would be very happy to see a back story for Scar, like what came first, the scar or the name? What makes him hate Mufasa so much? I think there’s a lot they could do to make this a better film than the first, we will just have to wait until July 19th 2019!
Disney Inside 
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